The late night breeze was cold against Luna's face as she gazed down from the window of her chamber high in one of the tallest towers of Canterlot Castle. It blew in around her, setting the tapestries on the walls of her bedroom flapping fitfully. Far below, she could see all of Equestria, covered in darkness, and she watched as one by one the pretty yellow lights of the inhabitants' houses scattered across the blue and grey landscape winked out, leaving everything dark and still.

She looked up at the moon  a mere sliver of anaemic yellow against the black sky, barely brighter than the tiny trembling stars that encircled it, and she thought back to how it had been so different once, a thousand years ago. Her moon had glowed fiercely then, fierce and beautiful, and Equestria had enjoyed a night-time wonderland where everything her light touched sparkled with an aura of blue-silver.

Whenever the people of Equestria told the legend of how she and her older sister Celestia had fallen to quarrelling, they always mentioned how it was she, Luna, who had grown angry and resentful that the people preferred to play during Celestia's day, ignoring her own beautiful night. But it hadn't truly happened that way. There had always been those who had loved her night, living their whole lives within it. And Luna had loved them back.

She looked down at Ponyville. It was late, and every light had been extinguished  except for one tiny yellow light remained.

"Whoever you are," Luna whispered, "Thank you for enjoying my night."

Those endless nights spent looking down across the land, the stars about her head like a crown, covering it with her blue-silver light! Luna sighed. The moon that Celestia had made, the prison she had been trapped in for ten centuries, was a mere shadow of what HER moon had been. But everyone had forgotten that, forgotten it long, long ago.

Sister, she prayed. I wish you would let me shine again!

Everyone thought that she and Celestia had been reconciled  that Princess Celestia, in her boundless mercy and compassion had forgiven Luna and welcomed back to her side her beloved little sister.

But in truth they were far from reconciled. Luna suspected  but she feared saying it out loud, as her sister could hear anything that was said in Canterlot Castle  that it had been Twilight Sparkle's presence that had kept Celestia from destroying her off hand when they had met in the ruined Temple of the Two Sisters, after Luna's vengeful avatar Nightmare Moon had been stripped from her by the Elements of Harmony. Celestia had stayed her hand  but her mercy was like her heart, cold and empty.

Luna wiped away a tear. This room is no different from my prison of a thousand years. Oh, I wish I could dance again, just one more time, up there among the stars like I once did!

And she remembered how, when the world had been young and Day and Night had shared the world twice a day, she and Celestia had met and spent those seemingly endless twilight hours in each other's arms. Or had that all been a dream, a sweet, cruel dream born of those thousand years trapped within the moon?

Luna sighed and turned herself away from the arched window to her bed chamber. Her gilded cage! The four-poster bed with its quilt of blue and silver, interwoven with stars and moons. Her precious telescope on its stand, from which she spent day after day looking down upon Equestria, and next to it the chart of the night sky, with all its swirling constellations, which she had designed at the beginning of time itself. And not to forget those gorgeous tapestries, a present of her dear sister, which had woven on them the story of the Two Sisters! She laughed bitterly whenever she looked at the tapestries, caught up in the mountain breeze, their tassels fluttering as if to taunt her. So like her sister to have decorated her prison with pieces of art, beautiful beyond words, designed to remind her every day of what had happened to her  a velvet-covered knife twisted in her heart!

Bu the telescope made her sadder still. It brought the night sky down to her, but she couldn't touch it. She couldn't feel the star dust between her naked toes, the winds of the ionosphere in her dark hair, the aurora sparking at her fingertips as she danced! The telescope, another example of her sister's cruel kindnesses. But how she loved that telescope! With it she could look down at the lives of the inhabitants of Equestria, into the lives of her people.

My people! They will be my people again, she thought. The tears welled up in her eyes as she wondered if anyone still remembered her, still thought of her.

There was one person, though, beyond all others that she hoped knew of her, who she hoped thought of her. Luna would spend her days peering through the telescope, scanning from one side of Equestria to the other, from the Ocean to the Everfree Forest, looking for any sign of her, until her eyes burned and her neck ached from bending over the eyepiece.

The thought of her made tears finally overwhelm Luna, and she threw herself on the bed's starry quilt, burying her wet face in the deep pillows, sobs gripping her whole body. That was the worst part of Celestia's revenge. She wouldn't tell her where she was.

"Celestia!" Luna called out to her sister. She knew she could hear her. She could hear anything spoken within the domain of the castle. "Celestia!"

The answer came almost immediately, emanating from the very walls of her bedroom, as if Celestia's voice was the voice of Canterlot Castle itself." Yes, Luna? What do you want, my beloved little sister?"

"Celestia! Celestia, please!" she prayed. She, a goddess, reduced to praying to her own sister! She knew Celestia must be laughing, laughing at her powerlessness that light, bright laugh that echoed hollow in her empty heart. "You know what I want! It's the only thing I want. Please let me see her! Please ."

"You know that that can never happen, Luna," Celestia replied. "She is no longer part of you. She is my daughter now, and mine alone."

"She is part of both of us!" Luna shouted, jumping up from the bed and staring balefully down at the cold stone floor. Somewhere below her, through all the walls of stone, she knew that Celestia was sitting on her throne and smiling. "She's just as much me as she is you! We made her that way! That beautiful twilight evening we spent together, fashioning her out of our love for each other..." Tears spilled down her face and spattered darkly on the stone. "You betrayed me! You brought her to life while I was imprisoned. You promised you wouldn't. You stole her from me!" she whispered.

"I stole her from Nightmare Moon," replied Celestia simply. "To protect her from your rage. I could not allow you to contaminate my innocent child with the evil in your vengeful heart. You understand that, don't you, my precious little sister? "

"She's mine! Mine as well!" Luna was screaming now, and she tore at the hated tapestries with her nails and threw her telescope to the floor with a clang of dented metal and a crash of shattering lenses. "If you won't let me see her, just kill me! Destroy me utterly!" She fell to the floor. "I know you can do it. I know you want to do it. Annihilate me. Make everyone forget that I ever existed. It makes no difference to me."

"Oh, but I could never do that to you, Luna," Celestia's reply was sad, but within the sadness was a spark of dark humour. "For you are my sweet baby sister, and I love you. And I shall always love you  until the end of time itself."

Luna's eyes ached, raw from crying, and she clawed at the floor, her nails digging into her palms and dripping blood over her clenched fists, smearing the grey stone red. "Celestia. Please. Please. Let me see our daughter," She brought her mouth close to floor and whispered, almost too soft for herself to hear. "Let me hold her once. Just once just once ."

And far below her, in the absolute centre of the castle and the world itself, where she sat on the monolithic throne of Equestria, Princess Celestia heard her sister's whispered plea. And with a thin smile, like the cut of a dagger across her mouth, she replied "No."

*******

Far below, in Ponyville, only one person in the dark and silent town was awake. Twilight Sparkle sat at her desk in the library, the windows thrown wide so that the night breeze could blow against her face. She loved these quiet hours of the night, when everyone was asleep and there were no distractions  especially from a certain little green-haired boy!

She put her favourite silver-blue bookmark in the tome of magic she was studying, leaned back in her chair and gazed through the window. Far off, in the darkness, she could see the black shape of Canterlot Castle high up on the mountain peak, and even there, in the centre of Equestria, the lights were out and everything seemed still. Wait! Almost every light. There was a single window still lit up - far up, in one of the highest towers in the castle. Perhaps it was Celestia's bed chamber?

Twilight sighed, and chewed thoughtfully on the end of the pencil in her hand. There was a terrible ache in her heart, as if something was missing. "Oh Princess Celestia," she murmured. "Are you awake as well? Do you miss me?" The little point of light seemed to flicker as she asked. "Because I miss you. You ARE so like a mother to me, after all."

The light suddenly went out. And Twilight went back to reading her book in the silent solitude of the night.

A change of pace for me. This is the first part of a projected series of stories about Luna and Celestia. Luna has been imprisoned by her elder sister in Canterlot Castle, and as she gazes upon the night-time landscape of Equestria she is haunted by happy memories of the past.

I must disapprove of this. Sorry, I made a slight mistake there. Let me begin again.

WHAT?! WHY!?

There we are.

Firstly, why is Celestia a horrible person? Has someone in your life been a horrific sociopath? Some of your stories are unbelievably cruel. Unspeakably cruel. I mean, seriously, they are cruel to the point of absurdity. Cruel to the point of invoking my anger rather than my sadness, and that is an achievement.

Secondly, why did you make it humanized? The only purpose for that alteration appears to be the 'nails' and 'bloody palms' images. To be honest, I find this to be a crutch - it is very difficult to get similar images when working with a quadraped. However, I think that that is part of the fun of writing stories in this universe: You have to dig deep and think in order to portray emotions. As such, I see the 'humanized' point as detrimental overall, as it appears to have been for the sake of a simple image.

It appears that this was written 2 months prior to the reveal of Twi's parents in "Cutie Mark Chronicles", so I will grant that.

Unfortunately, there is no explanation for how Twilight is not 1000's of years old. How exactly was this whole thing supposed to work?

Next, and again, why is Celestia so cruel? NEVER has Celestia displayed such a cruelty. I have read a fiction of Celestia slaying a dragon, and she was STILL kinder than your Celestia. I mean, honestly, you might need to see someone about that. She claims she 'still loves' Luna, but is sadistically cruel to her, and refuses to do anything that doesn't make her suffer in some way. I notice you never bothered to explain why Celestia was so kind to her in the second part of Friendship is Magic.

Celestia is so grossly out of character, I decline to rate this piece at all; sorry.

This was just a flight of fantasy, RadiantVoid! Back in the day (wow, over a year ago now I guess) a lot of people were talking about Celestia being a tyrant, and I decided to let my mind wander over that concept. This is a darker, AU, if you will.As for them being humans - well, it was my intention back at the time to write a darker series of stories, and have them as humans since, well, grimdark ponies are inherently kinda ridiculous (at least to me!).Rereading this kinda makes me sorry I didn't go on to write that series. As for creating an evil character being a symptom of a diseased mind - aw, c'mon Radiant! You're better than that, surely. Next thing you'll be telling me is that Nabokov must have been a paedophile (or knew one intimately) since he wrote Lolita! SOmetimes writers use their... imaginations. I'm kinda happy you think I know a real psycho, since the character must ring true at least a little in that case.Thanks as always for your awesome comments!

Alrighty: Nabokov was making statement (I would hope); it was SUPPOSED to be screwed up. So yes, I understand where you are coming from in that.

Indeed, being as the 'cruelty' appears infrequently in your works, I can see that it is highly unlikely (at best) that you knew a psycho. Usually those kinds of things show up (in various forms) throughout the works, rather than a smattering here or there (Steven King, for example).

My comment was actually more that the level of cruelty was a bit 'above' what imagination can usually yield. We are... odd things, humans. Our concepts of torture are generally very limited. They prey on simple things - fear of drowning, isolation, physical harm and mutilation, and that sort of thing.

Hell, most 'torture' devices are just 'improvements' upon things we already found painful - splinters under the nails become thumb screws, spears/swords become the iron maiden (not often used: twas a rather pointless device beyond intimidation), confined spaces (numerous, though 'the rack' can qualify), drowning (a few examples that I care not to name), loss or being forced to murder (used primarily in undeveloped nations), and wounds (countless).

My line of reasoning was simply that the psychological cruelty of the 'dark' pieces doesn't really have such a precedent. I know you caught some flack for the 'Mirror of Impossible Dreams' end... but it was bad enough that my brother - only marginally interested in MLP - has occasionally references it in conversations. Apparently it was cruel enough to stick with him.

That said, 'taunting denial' DOES fall under 'established' torture, so I definitely withdraw my assertion that you knew/know a sociopath for the piece. I clearly wasn't rational in that, and took it too far.

Completely off topic - what is that object above your avatar's right (viewer's left) ear? I thought it was a watermelon slice at first... But is it a rose?

You know, RadiantVoid, I think I'm strangely unaware of the level of cruelty in some of my writing. Did you know that Mirror of Impossible Dreams is supposed to be bitter-sweet, and not at all dark? But after so many people mentioning it, I've come to understand where they're coming from. Maybe I'm a budding grimdark writer who's missed their true calling in the fandom!You don't have to apologise for anything. I hope my reply didn't come across as annoyed, because I wasn't! I very much appreciate your comments on my work, as they are always well-reasoned and exceedingly helpful to me as a writer. Oh, and the thing behind my ear is a rose!

*This one has been revealed to be a misunderstanding on Luna's part... but for the sake of completeness I included it anyway.**I am a funny guy... I know this is a humorous piece, probably letting off steam... but a bit dark? Why would Ditzy kill anypony? Why did she become giant? Rule of Funny explains the muffin sun, but the giantness was just bizarre. And then how grim - killing Fluttershy in a decidedly-unhumorous (and rather spiteful) manner. AND how Applejack channeled Leonard 'Bones' McCoy with her extremely grim analysis (and she implied only 3 would be save) of the situation.

Odd, most of these instances seem to be of unrequited love or misunderstandings. It would, technically, be frequent enough to attribute this to a personality/writing quirk... were it not for the fact that drama in these works usually derives from such things. As such, I am unwilling to attribute it to personality or the like.

You are not a grimdark writer. You are not a 'grim' writer either (except for the Mare of Misrule). Dark? Hardly. Dark usually requires a bit more oomph. When you write like this... it is almost purely mental cruelty that is inflicted. That's what I find so... odd... and so horrible. They... can't bear their scars. No one would ever know what they had endured. They do not heal easily, and can actually grow as time goes on. It's not even mind rape... it's just... I don't know. To do that kind of thing ... and have it done in a way to be believed... and then have the character inflicting it act as though they did nothing... it's horrific.

It's really, really weird for me. I have a fairly high tolerance for both dark and grim... though that doesn't mean I won't complain when it goes out of its way to do that. But this sort of thing is completely beyond my grasp. I can't come up with this sort of abuse. I don't think i've ever read anything similar to it. It's ... alien. They don't seem to consider, or react, to how much trauma they are inflicting.

The only remotely-justified case is Luna. Twilight, on the other hand, wasn't really in any danger, so 'winning' at the cost of shattering Trixie was cold. Rubbing it in her face - perhaps meant to be childish jubilation - came across as EXTREMELY callous at best... evil at the worst. But Twilight doesn't particularly like Trixie, and I could see how she simply 'didn't care', as she was (in her mind) just showing up a bully. Most people... are unable to see passed emotion. I can see past it a bit better than most... but it isn't possible to completely rid oneself of it.

Come across as? I'm afraid I don't have much ability to detect what people do or do not 'come across as'. Blunt words beat nuance when dealing with me. Considering I don't pull any punches with criticisms, 'tis a fair trade.

This is an interesting setup. The idea that Twilight is this special daughter of two goddesses is intriguing and provides an interesting contrast between Celestia's nurturing side (it she has one. Who knows what her purpose in bringing life to her was, especially so long after making her and so close to Nightmare Moon's return? Perhaps Celestia intended to use Twilight, a being of immense power given her origins, as a weapon against the return of her fallen sister, and the end game wasn't quite what she expected?) and her cold and cruel side.

Once again your ability to describe emotion shines here, giving a lot of emotional weight to Luna's torment at her imprisonment and the true cruelty of Celestia's actions. This will be an interesting series should you decide to pick it up again.

And as an aside, this vignette reminds me of this picture I found earlier: [link]

Well written, and it makes tyrannical Celestia somewhat plausible but:

a) Incongruent with Your other stories (I haven't read them all yet, but I read Luna's socks).

b) I prefer the version of the story, where Celestia is benevolent, and Luna was possessed by Nightmare moon, especially after that version of the story was portrayed in several fan fictions. The way I understand it, Luna grew jealous of her sister and that ponies admired Celestia more and were active during the day. This resentment grew in her for a long time, and tension between sisters increased. Celestia belittled it, and tried to cheer Luna up, but to no avail. Luna was the darker of the two sisters, and was beginning to listen to voices of malevolent beings from the stars. Nightmare moon promised Luna to make her more like her sister. Luna eventually gave in, but it didn't happen overnight. They planned it, and forged an armor made of star-metal for the Nightmare Moon. Then it began. Nightmare Moon rose the moon and kept it up. While a lot of ponies believe Celestia to be the stronger sister, it is a misconception. During the night Luna is stronger, and Nightmare Moon was helping her. Even with elements of harmony Celestia was powerless to lower the moon during the night. She tried to reason with her sister, but it was for naught. Nightmare Moon was too angry. Especially that ponies feared and resented her, rather than worship her, and even after she tried to force them to like her night, they didn't. That was infuriating. After a few sunless days winter covered all of Equestria, and plants started dying. Nightmare Moon didn't care, she just wanted them to suffer for rejecting her and her night. Princess Celestia was desperate to save her people. She couldn't control the moon with her sister in charge. She couldn't or wouldn't kill Nightmare Moon, so she did the one thing she could, and Nightmare Moon just wasn't prepared for banishment. Princess Celestia saved her people, but at a great price to herself and her sister. [link]

Still, Luna seems to be locked under guard for now. She wasn't at the grand galloping gala after all. Celestia enjoys messing with her subjects a bit too much, but the way I see it, she is an embodiment of harmony, and laughter is one of it's elements. Her pranks are mostly harmless, and she laughed at Twilight's fake ink, so that habit of her seems OK. Plus she is old, and much of her daily life is boring routine (like the grand galloping gala), and she probably needs some amusement to keep herself sane.

Well... The story is fantastic, very well written, truely showing the ache of loneliness with Luna and a rather intresting.. pleasent sadism on Celestria's part. What does bother me, in reading a story about cartoon horses, I sit here polishing a broadsword from my collection and have the sudden urge to storm a castle and rescue M'LADY! I'm not sure if it's my love of poor little Luna or just how much this fanfic drew me in, but both answers scare me a little.

I have an account on ff net, but I read their Terms and Conditions and they're a lot different to DAs in that they can use your stuff without asking (not that they would, but it kinda made me think twice about uploading my stuff there...) I think I'll stick to posting stuff on DA for now, and posting my raunchier stuff as links on Equestria After Dark ([link])

That being said, it was an excellent story. While I'd like to read another story in this universe, even if you leave it as is its still the kind of story that makes me imagine what could happen next. And any story that makes me think of something new is amazing.